It is indeed interesting, and this part is
surprisingly well conceived:
What is different this time is that this nomination battle is no longer purely about predicting the likely outcome of Judge Kavanaugh’s vote on the court. It now involves the symbolic meaning of his nomination and confirmation in the #MeToo era. The hearings and the committee’s deliberations are now also a bellwether of the way the country treats women when their reports of harassment, assault and abuse threaten to derail the careers of powerful men.
While nomination hearings are far from the best venue to deal with such issues, the question is sufficiently important that it is prudent to recognize it as determinative at this point. Dr. Blasey's accusations have neither been fully investigated nor been proven to a legal standard, but neither have they been conclusively disproved or shown to be less than credible. Judge Kavanaugh continues to enjoy a legal presumption of innocence, but the standard for a nominee to the Supreme Court is far higher; there is no presumption of confirmability. The best of the bad resolutions available in this dilemma is for Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to be withdrawn.
If Senate Republicans proceed with his nomination, they will be prioritizing policy aims over a woman’s report of an assault.
And yet, arguing that Kavanaugh's nomination be withdrawn is not, at least not entirely, based upon the above-described valid notions of decency and respect. Rather, it's part of a larger struggle for the religion-based fight for a conservative, even reactionary, backward-oriented court majority, which shall not be tainted by a justice with a cloud of sexual violence and mendacity hanging over him:
There are many good reasons to support the nomination of a qualified judge who is committed to a textualist interpretation of the Constitution to the Supreme Court. Over time, such an approach may return the question of abortion to the states, where it belongs ...
We continue to support the nomination of judges according to such principles—but Judge Kavanaugh is not the only such nominee available.
Such taint, they say, can be avoided, and must be, and the characteristics of the aim of governing the country according to notions of the late 18th century - ludicrous and misogynistic in its own right - should not be advertised by being associated with one such as the fine, honorable judge Kavanaugh.